by Rob Sedgwick
But I don’t think he will be fine.
My poor, lovely father. When he looks away from me, he looks hopeless.
—
In East Hampton, the weather is almost always spectacular. Mosquitoes are not allowed. Though the dress is J. Crew casual, the pastels are still loud and it’s still Park Avenue with a beach. Nikko, Kyra, and I really don’t get along with the people here. We are different, opposite. We belong to the land of misfit toys. Summers drone on, gorgeous, insipid, and Cherry Orchard dull, until we find an occupation: getting high with Ben’s daughter and her husband.
Suddenly our time in the Hamptons becomes magnifique.
University professors about ten years older than I am at fifteen, Patti and Peter come to visit every summer from across the country. When Linus joins us, life becomes a champagne-edged Lollapalooza. Patti and Peter are children of the sixties and comport themselves accordingly: lots of pot and other contraband, the Who, Jefferson Airplane and Buffalo Springfield, rebelling, hanging out, and lots of avoidance of Ben Heller, the big rain on our groovy parade.
After dinner, we all take a “proverbial.” Proverbial is our secret code for going for a walk to get stoned. With little in common with the rest of her family, Patti feels like an outsider, so she bonds with us.
Once Linus arrives, dinners are a remarkable tapestry of color and texture: blackened steak and orgasmic lobster; pastry puffs filled with various cheeses, fresh vegetables, or herbs; paella with bright yellow saffron rice; mussels succulent and perfect, like melting butter in your mouth; chicken dripping off the bone. Salads that are luxuriant and bounteous, fresh from the garden—greens, reds, and yellows exploding out of a gargantuan wooden bowl. Coronation chicken salad, bright reds, crimson and earth tones, drenched in a sort of ambrosia emulsion, with nuts, grapes, and berries so delicious you can’t stop eating it. Fresh blueberry or strawberry pie, chocolate cake, the icing creamy and supreme, or profiteroles with a thick hot chocolate fudge sauce. Crêpes Suzette: paper-thin, somehow slightly crispy, doused with a sauce dominated by Grand Marnier and dusted with confectionery sugar.
After dinner and the wizardry of Linus’s kitchen, we do the dishes. Then we go out on a proverbial and meander through the perfumed, overly manicured night-dying lanes and avenues of the over-privileged. We are skanklins, fuck-ups, weirdos. We aren’t invited to the posh parties, which is just fine with us. We loll about the night grass on other people’s property, drinking, getting high, Linus telling tall tales, Patti laughing so high-pitched it could shatter glass, and Peter, a Queens Jew who feels small and out of place in the world of Ben Heller, mellowing as he gets higher. Nikko, Kyra, and I, in the company of grown-ups, sponge up their cool experiences, finally fitting in somewhere.
Back to the house, late, we continue in the kitchen for a “kitchen session,” sans pot so as not to “reek the house up” and alert the ’rents. We can’t be skanklins, we have to be deft.
Linus: Yo, Rob, man you’ve got to be deft man! I mean, your laughter is so barreling it could wake up friends of mine that have been dead for years, man.
Kyra (singing): “Just yes-ter-day morn-in—”
Patti: Yeah, be quiet. You’ll just wake up Dad, and then we’ll all be fucked!
Rob: I’m sorry! I just think it’s funny when Linus talks about all the guys he’s fucked in the ass.
Patti: Well, Dad’s gonna fuck you in the ass if you don’t shut up!
Linus: You too, my dear, stop your cackling. You sound like Margaret Hamilton!
Kyra (singing): “—know you were gone…” Can I take some more pot?
Linus: My dear, you’re twelve, you’ve had plenty. Besides, we seem to have run out. Oh, my.
Kyra: What?! No pot?! That’s fucked up!
Patti: Linus, I love you sooo much! Finally, someone we can talk to out here!
Peter: Patti, get your fucking tongue out of his mouth!
Patti: My tongue wasn’t in his fucking mouth, for Christ’s sakes. I was just kissing him because I think he’s so great.
Peter: Linus, I think you should stop copping a feel on my wife, and I think we should move on to the cocktail situation. Or the tail of the cock situation. Whichever you prefer.
Linus: I much prefer that one!
Kyra (singing): “Suzanne, the plans they made…”
Rob: Linus, tell us why you think James Bond is so silly again.
Linus: Because his martinis are shaken and not stirred, thereby bruising the gin.
Rob: But James Bond has vodka martinis, not gin.
Linus: I know. And that is what makes him such a philistine! Dear boy, why must you wear those guinea T-shirts? Your muscles are getting too big again. You look lumpish and silly.
Kyra (singing): “…remember who…” Yeah! You look like a statue!
Rob: Could you stop fucking ruining that song?
Kyra: My fucking singing teacher said I sing with great feeling and passion! And if I want to sing the fucking song, I will sing the fucking song! So fuck off.
Nikko: Are we going to have drinks or what?
Peter: Russia speaks!
Kyra (singing): “Whoa, I’ve seen fire…”
Rob: The swelling tones. A caricature of bad singing.
Kyra: FUCK OFF!
Nikko: Both of you be quiet! Ben’s going to come down...
Peter: Oy.
Rob: You’re what Grammy Sedgwick would call a real Jew.
Linus: Oh Rob, you’re such a Turk.
Peter: Nazi sympathizer, half-breed. You’re like the Jew version of Charlton Heston.
Rob: And you’re from Queens! You’d never be allowed in Stockbridge.
Peter: They’d probably check my big Jew cock for circumcision. I’d be expunged. Patti, get your tongue out of that fruit’s mouth!
Linus: Please! I much prefer “faggot.”
Patti: You know he likes “faggot!” It’s the thickness, not the length.
Peter: Of what?
Patti: Your big Jew cock that often makes me gag.
Linus: My dear, if I weren’t such a screaming faggot, I’d—
Peter: Linus, please! She’s my fucking wife and I’m her fucking husband and I’m sitting right here! Go upstairs if you’re going to do that. I don’t want to watch!
(Thump thump thump.)
Kyra: Oh fuck!
Peter: The bald guy.
Rob: Ben.
Linus: Oh dear.
Patti: Oh fuuu…ha ha ha hee hee heee…!!!!
Peter: Patti! Shush!
Nikko: We’re going down.
(Ben appears.)
Ben: What the fuck is going on down here!
Patti: Sorry, Dad, we were—
Ben: Jesus fucking Christ son of a bitch! What the fuck is going on down here? It’s one in the fucking morning, for Christ’s sake. You children are…
Nikko (to Peter): So this junkie’s like, “Can you hold my penis while I try to piss?”
Ben: …making such a racket, you interrupted your mother’s and my lovemaking. Excuse me, Nicholas. I was speaking.
Nikko: So was I.
Ben: I was speaking first.
Nikko: So was I.
Ben: Excuse me?
Nikko: You just came in here and interrupted everyone like you’re the only person on the planet. I was telling Peter about this junkie who wanted me to hold his cock while he pissed.
Ben: Well, did you help the poor man?
Nikko: He wanted me to follow him down an alleyway to hold his cock while he pissed, and I didn’t think it was such a great idea.
Ben: You are so fucking selfish it is un-fucking-believable.
Nikko: I’m so selfish?
Ben: Not to help another human being?
Nikko: He was a fucking junkie, for Christ’
s sake. God, you’re such an asshole.
Ben: Excuse me?
Nikko: You heard me.
Ben: Would you like to go outside and engage in fisticuffs? Or would you prefer to end this right here, right now?
Nikko: Um…right now’s okay.
(Silence. Ben leaves.)
(Silence.)
All: YAY, NIKKO!
21
“If you go away, it’s going to be a federal situation,” Ron said. He and Warren, my crack legal team, sat with me in the conference room.
“So if you go away, it won’t be a cakewalk by any stretch, but more likely than not the worst thing that happens in there is boredom. You read, you work out.”
Perhaps I could achieve that Charles Atlas body I had always yearned for.
A polished lizard that had overdone it at the tanning booth, Ron wore a suit of the highest-quality swank and the cut of his cuffs was perfect. His fingers were bejeweled.
“It’s a minimum-security prison, so everyone wants to be there. The shenanigans that happen in a more heavily secured facility are rare to none where you’ll be going. If you go away at all.”
When I’d hung out with Linus at seventeen, elegantly sipping Rhum Barbancourt in his bedroom, he’d spun tales of Hank’s escapades in prison. It sounded so exotic, so colorful.
“I’d love to go to prison just for the experience,” I’d told Linus. “It would be unique. Thrilling. Vital for a Renaissance man of my ilk.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for a man of your ilk,” Linus said.
“First you have to get a job,” Ron was saying now.
“Can I bartend?” I knew Moss would hire me immediately.
“No. Bartenders are notorious for associating with a criminal element.”
“Can I be a waiter?” I had no real experience being a waiter. “What about doing movies? I have two movies coming out now. My agent is getting lots of requests from casting agents.”
“You can’t leave the southern district of New York State.”
“Soap operas?
“Where do they shoot?”
“In the city.”
“Great, go get a soap.”
I thought I was done with soap operas, and my heart drooped a little. I was on a roll there and I blew it. But this was more of a maneuver than a professional decision. I kept telling myself that.
“Then you have to have a community service commitment,” said Warren, ever practical.
“Why do I have to get a community service commitment?”
“It looks good during sentencing.”
“But I don’t want to get a community service commitment.”
“No one does. People only do it because they have to or they’re trying to feel better about themselves. You fall under the category of have to. You see, Rob, we have to do everything we can to show that you have learned from your mistake,” Ron speaks as if he’s talking to a jury, “that it was merely a youthful indiscretion, and that you’re doing your best to make restitution to society for your misdeed.”
“Restitution?”
“That means you fucked up and now you’re trying to make nice. You feel bad and know that what you did was horribly wrong.”
“And that I’m ashamed?”
“Yes.”
“And that I’ve disgraced myself?”
“Yes.”
“And my family?”
“Yes.”
“And that I want to make it right?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
—
“Get a job, Uncle Rob,” my nieces and nephews used to sing when I was six years younger and not employed. They were about twenty years younger than me, and even though they were children and this jingle was supposed to be funny, they thought it might be a good idea.
The refrain obsessively repeated in my head as I walked into restaurants to apply for waiter positions to render myself a trustworthy citizen. I was nervous asking for these jobs. The only experience I ever had in a restaurant was being a dishwasher—I got demoted because I couldn’t hack being a busboy. But I liked being a dishwasher. It was physical work, no one would bother me, and I would pop anything that looked good off the plate into my mouth. I was told by one of the other dishwashers that this was disgusting. It didn’t bother me.
At Ninety-Fifth and Amsterdam, the manager of Portnoy’s Complaint couldn’t have been nicer. He looked like Dolph Schayes, the tall Jewish basketball player, in a kitchen apron.
Dolph took me over to a table in back for an interview. “So where’d you work?”
“A restaurant in San Francisco called Rosebud.”
This was, of course, entirely made up. I had remembered this restaurant from a time I had been in San Francisco and figured there was no way he could check.
“About how long?”
“Six months.”
“And you have experience? You know what a ‘dupe’ is and stuff?”
“Of course.” I had no idea what a dupe was. My toes curled with such force, my calves started to cramp.
“We don’t have anything right now, but I got your number, and I’ll let you know if we do.”
“Thanks.”
I called Moss immediately and got his machine three times in a row. Finally he answered.
“Look, Moss, when I call you, you’ve got to pick up the fucking phone! I’m in a serious legal situation here and I need help!”
“Robbie, cool it.”
“No, you fucking cool it. I have to get a job so it looks good for my sentencing, and I’m trying to get a waitering job and I obviously don’t know how to be waiter, so I need some help here.”
“Robbie, what’s your fucking problem? I’ll hire you at the bar, and you can drink as much booze as you want and steal from the register and you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing. I’m not allowed to be a bartender.”
“Why?”
“Because bartenders are notorious for their criminal associations.”
“Robbie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a fucking idiot. You know that?”
“First of all, fuck you, and second of all, you have to help me. Now I just went into Portnoy’s Complaint to try and get a waitering job, and the guy there asked me what a dupe is.”
“Yeah?”
“So what’s a dupe?”
“What’s a dupe?”
“Yeah, what’s a dupe?”
“You’re a dupe, you fucking idiot. It means a duplicate. Jesus! Meet me at the bar this afternoon— I’ll put you on tonight, and believe me, no one is going to know or give a flying fuck that you’re tending bar.”
I met Moss at the bar. We cut limes. We cut lemons. We played music. I knew everybody there. There was no pressure; whatever I fucked up, Moss was there to fix, and everyone was so drunk that no one cared.
The manager from Portnoy’s Complaint showed up. He grinned seeing me. “When I said ‘dupe,’ you looked like I was talking in Chinese.” He expertly placed a twenty-dollar tip for me on the bar.
My agent hooked me up with a woman from Actors Take Action, a group that undertook community service projects for the poor. I had no charitable desire to join such an organization, but it looked good for sentencing and would make my lawyers happy. I volunteered the use of the huge, besmirched, twelve-room Eighty-Fifth Street apartment, where I was still living as a meeting space. Lots of actors and show business people showed up. My perpetually filled Mason jar of vodka and orange juice made it easier to endure their endless actor banter:
“Who’s your agent?”
“What are you working on?”
“Did you go up for ______?”
“Nice headshots!”
“Did you know you’re on the TV
ads for that movie?”
I didn’t know or care. Their schmoozing was enough to make me want to shoot heroin, even though I never shot heroin. But I liked the idea of saying I’d shoot heroin when things got too annoying. Only the vodka helped dull my edge, making me act silly. This made me perversely more appealing. No one knew of my legal situation, or of my baby-to-be.
When the first group of people arrived, Tybalt entered cautiously because I never had groups of people over. He was thinking another deal was about to go down and how could I be so stupid. The tone of his breathing had a sort of low, warning gurgle in it. But when he realized that it wasn’t a deal and that these were not drug dealers but actors, the gurgling shifted to a sigh, then an exhalation of boredom, then an almost high-pitched squeal of “Why are they here? These annoying anti-people, in our apartment, sitting on our stuff and touching things?”
More actors arrived.
He roamed the room trying to be a good host, but they just sat on his couch, leaving him no room on his own couch (even when he tried to get onto it), and spoke to him like a doggy, which he could never tolerate. He finally left when a musical theater actress with popping peepers and a pealing laugh talked baby talk at him. She was laughing up a storm with a mega smile plastered to her face that screamed “Please hire me!”
Tybalt never sought out or wanted anyone’s approval. Why would he? Sure, there were people he loved; I knew he missed Julie because of the way he still inhaled and contemplated sections of the apartment that held her smell. He would linger and consider these spots for a while, searching for something that still might be there if he looked hard enough. Then he would come trotting up to me. My conscience. Staring me in the kisser. The guilt made my intestines shiver, then shrivel. My body felt lead heavy all over, and that awful heaviness would just permeate the time and space around me. I couldn’t move. And a baby coming on top of it. What a concept. A living, breathing, defenseless someone entirely dependent on you, wanting you and all your love, and also a pure and innocent vessel in which to dump all the shit you’ve accumulated in your life that you think is wisdom but which is really just stupidity, or at best dim-wittedness, so you can fuck up his purity.